Asa is a very difficult dog to catch, so we’ve been leaving him free to roam in the dog yard. Monday the 16th, I went for a short 7 mile mush and Asa followed us, sometimes running behind us, sometimes in lead; he was having a great time. On our last stretch before home we encountered a neighbor who is known for having “alligator” dogs. An alligator dog is a dog who attacks a passing team.

As soon as we encountered the team, they pounced Asa. My neighbor managed to get his dogs off of Asa, I passed with my team and saw that Asa looked okay (no blood, he was running) and then stopped to see if his team was okay.  His responded, “your dogs passed on the wrong side! That’s why this happened.” I immediately took off and thought, “What a jerk! His dogs attacked mine, I stopped to help, and he’s yelling at me.”

When we got home, I couldn’t catch Asa to check him out, but he appeared to be happy and healthy. He may have had a slight limp.

—

The next night I took the “A” team out for a 12 mile run. I didn’t want to take Asa as a free runner because I wanted Chester to go, and I didn’t want to have two loose dogs. At the last moment, right before I was ready to leave the yard, I caught Asa. Greg put him on his chain.

I told Greg he should go ahead and have a party (meaning let the remaining dogs off), and I’d catch the ones he can’t catch (Simba and Rattles) when I came home. When I got home  and brought my team into the yard, I saw Simba and Rattles running around. Simba had a scratch on his snout and there was some blood in the snow.  I found Asa hiding in a private section of the dog yard and he had been beaten up quite badly, but not as bad as we have seen. We brought him inside, and decided that he didn’t have to go to the ER vet and we’d bring him for stitches in the morning.

The next morning, we dropped Asa off at our vet. I mentioned that Asa was Higgs’ brother, and it would be interesting to see if Asa had the same heart condition as his Higgs. One of the docs listened to his heart and said, “Nope. Asa’s heart is steady and strong. It’s nothing like Higgs’ rhythm.”

Around 1pm I got a call from the vet. “Hi, this is Dr. xxxxxx.”
I said, “Hi. How’s Asa?”
He said, “We lost him.”
I responded, “Okay.”
He said, “No, it’s not okay.”
He started to explain what happened and I was in too much shock to listen, so I told him I’d call him back. I tracked Greg down at work, and we drove to the vet’s office.

None of us know what really happened. The vet himself was surprised. They had given Asa some anesthesia. He began to wake up. They gave him a different type of anesethia…the gas kind. He was on a heart monitor. Everything was fine and the doc was almost finished, “two stitches from being done,” and Asa’s heart stopped. They couldn’t revive him.

Asa, we miss and love you!

Asa (left) and his brother Higgs

But Decker has a sprained wrist, and has been off training for over two weeks. We’ll ease her in again next week. She’s a champion lead dog, and seems rather depressed to not be running.

Simba got pulled off the “A” team last season, due to a persistent shoulder injury. So, we eased him in this year, and included lots of stretching and massage. But no luck: the injury is still there.

Roo is good for training, but only pulls for 20 miles or so. After that, she can keep up, but doesn’t work. Definitely more of a sprint dog.

I was worried about Asa (he’s getting older, and had a persistent resistance to running with me, last year), but he and brother Higgs are still pulling strong and true.

The most recent loss is Luke. We are not sure what’s going on, but he did poorly on Saturday, then on Sunday simply wouldn’t pull (he was getting tugged by his neckline). He is sort of limpy, and sort of looks constipated, and we are not sure what’s up. We’ll let him keep resting for a few more days before visiting the vet (we have not had a week without at least two vet trips in 5 or 6 weeks!).

So the current “A” team (in the typical pairs we run them in):

Chevy, Nicki
Ahab, Rocket (who I’m not that sure about…he seems to overheat)
Capella, Zeus
Higgs, Asa
Roo (good spunkiness, but limited miles)
Spike (used to run with Luke)

We might get Phanty trained up. He’s only a yearling, and really doesn’t have much of a clue about anything, but seems to have potential. Also, I hope Decker will get back into training again. Bottom line is that today, we have 10 “A” team dogs, and maybe three others (Decker, Phanty, Luke) who might get back onto the “A” team.

The next day (March 21) we got up late, and eventually left camp at around 1pm. We were following the trail that had  started at the park headquarters. Since this year was such a big snow year, the bad section of overflow and glare ice (around 1 mile after park headquarters), wasn’t bad at all. Soon the trail petered out and we were following a ski trail. The snow was very deep, so I put on my snow shoes and broke trail, then ran back and mushed with my snow shoes still on. Repeat process.

Unfortunately, the ski trail we were following let us to the park road and the road had just been plowed. It snowed a little bit the night before, so the road had some snow cover on it. We cruised down the road to the Savage River camp site. We stopped to set up camp (around 4:00pm), and it took us a long time to melt snow and take care of dogs– but at least this time we were able to do chores in the daylight. We kept Sam and Bruno, with the rest of the dogs, on tie-outs and let Chester and Storm free. Storm was very needy.

After a night of endless whining from Bruno, we woke up at around 9am and began morning chores. After chores, we scouted a possible route back to headquarters that would have led us through Jenny Creek. There was a lot of open water on the creek, as well as no-snow spots, and we didn’t see a definitive trail, so we decided to head back the same way we came out. We saw HUGE wolf tracks and tons of fresh wolf scat; HUGE bunny tracks; and a big fat bird that was waiting for us to leave camp.

We probably left camp around 2pm and were quite bummed to see that the road had been plowed again– and this time it was plowed to the asphalt. We mushed for around 1/4 mile on the road (Yuk) and eventually got back to sections of the road that had some snow. We found the turn off for the ski trail, and with a little maneuvering got the teams to make the turn. The rest of the mush home was uneventful.

Dogs

We brought 21 pulling dogs and one fun dog (Chester).

Days 1 & 2

Ilana

1. Nikki / Chevy (no one wants to run next to Chevy because he nips at his running mate)
2. Ahab / Decker
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Asa / Higgs
5. Peetie / Red

Greg

1. Frankie / Storm
2. Dutchess / Rocket
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Roo
5. Monkey / Pumpkin
6. Luke /Spike

Day 3

Ilana

1. Nikki/ Chevy
2. Frankie / Dutchess
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Monkey / Pumpkin
5. Asa / Higgs

Greg

1. Decker/ Storm
2. Ahab/ Rocket
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Roo
5. Peetie / Red
6. Luke /Spike

Trip Planning
Since I was traumatized by Spot being killed, Greg was in charge of packing and trip planning. I don’t know the exact amounts of what he brought– but it was a lot of food. For dog food he brought two 40lb bags of kibble, a block of turkey skins, Champagne race meat, energy pack, 42 pieces of big fish, some left over snacks from the Serum run (which Peetie, Sam, Bruno, and Chester stole from my sled) and some fat. We came back with most of the turkey, race meat, energy back, and 30lbs of kibble).

Gear

• Our Mountain Hardware winter tent is great, however our 20+F sleeping bags really aren’t appropriate for -20F.
• Once again we had stove problems. Greg purchased a pump for our MSR stove, but there are two separate pumps for the Whisper Lite and the DragonFly, so the pump he bought didn’t work with the stove we brought. We also had issues with our Colman stove.  Note to self: bring fire starter paste!

Heather’s snow machine is ready, and will haul a huge sled with lots of gear. Ilana’s dog sled will also have days of booties, first aid (for dogs, people, and the sled), food, dog jackets, and more. It’s a major expedition, and both challenging and fun.

Here’s a link to some diagrams of the anatomy of the canine gut (if that link doesn’t work, try this one).

Apparently his intestines are in bad shape and if he ever needs his intestine cut again (he’s had it cut before), he’s not going to do well.

Today was the first run with 12 dogs (versus 10) and on the RatStack/Mullen’s Slough route. We’ve been doing a 12 mile loop for two weeks. Sunday afternoon is a popular time to mush in our area, with lots of folks who don’t get out regularly during the week. It’s great to see the neighborhood, though not everyone knows some of the basic trail rules.

A case in point was that I came upon two people with an ATV and 6 or so dogs. They had driven their truck to the winter trail intersection from an access trail. It’s not my access trail, so I don’t know how far it is or over what conditions, but it was a surprising sight to see a truck there. I’ve never seen anything motorized on the winter trail except for snowmachines and ATVs.

My team was going fairly quickly (this is nearly 3 miles from our house, so they still had plenty of ya-yas at that point), and I needed to slow down to avoid overrunning the ATV team. They must have seen me when they started (when I was 50 yards from their truck), but went ahead. I called for trail, to pass them, but they didn’t hear or ignored me.

Neighbor and uber-musher Mike King pulled up behind me with his team. We were all waiting to pass. It was about 20 minutes — really — before they finally got a clue and pulled over. I asked them to hold their leaders, but instead they drove for another few minutes and tried again. This time, holding their leaders.

Trail passing etiquette for passing from behind is, essentially, that the team in front should pull over at first opportunity, set a brake, and hold their lead dogs to the side of the trail so the trailing team can pass. Then, to not pass again immediately, since being passed tends to energize dogs. Those folks didn’t seem to know about such things, and clearly weren’t keeping much of an eye on the trail behind them.

Anyway, I called out my thanks, and a warning that another team was behind me, and continued on. Another few miles and after crossing Pheasant Farm Road, my mush was going well. The team knows that section of trail, but hadn’t been there all season. After a steep downhill, we dropped onto the slough. This is a cross between a marsh and a river and a pond. Not a good place to try to get through in the summer, but during the winter there is a trail that drops on and off the ice, and crosses through some woods. Some TRDMA races go through there. Maybe the Yukon Quest does, too.

The trail was in, though not very well used. I followed it, and in an open field area Chester (my trusty loose leader) spun off and headed towards a cow & adolescent moose. Moose! No, it wasn’t too perilous. The team saw the moose, but they saw us and wandered off into the woods before we got there. We were within 200 feet or so, and Chester got close enough to say “hi,” but then we were past.

Another mile or so along the slough, towards the end where we get back onto Pheasant Farm Road (which at that point is more of a logging road), there was a tight right turn up a hill, and a small fallen tree across the trail. Suddenly, after following a trail all that way, there wasn’t any more trail. Maybe the main trail veered off without me noticing.

More importantly, the dogs went under the branch, down the other side, and immediately fell through the ice over the slough. Yep, the stinkypups got another bath!! It was surprising to me to find this thin ice, since everything so far had been solid. (For those who remember my bath from 2006: I’ve crossed that section many times, and the ice is totally solid and well used.)

I was wrestling with the branch, the dogs were swimming and trying to get through. It was an opening about the size of a kitchen table, or a bit bigger. I was thinking of trying to drag everyone up and back the way we came, but as I wrestled with the branch they kept pulling me forward, and eventually I got free of the branch, they leapt forward out of the water, and I was pulled in. My sled got a little sideways, and I was up to my waist in very cold, muddy, stinky water. I got the dogs to keep going, although they fell through the ice again, in a smaller hole, 15 yards ahead.

I told them “lets go” and held onto the sled, getting it right side up, to let them drag me through. Rather than trying to stand on the thin ice, or get up on my runners, I let them drag me along the ice (spreading out my weight). This worked, and we made it through the other side. I needed to untangle a few dogs once we were on a small bit of land (just a 15 foot section between parts of the slough), but otherwise nobody seemed any worse for wear.

Ahead, I could see a much wider part of the slough with a trail on it, which we joined. The rest of the mush was without incident. I’m sure there are some locals who can tell me about a current, or hot spring, or something similar that keeps that small section from freezing as early as the rest, but it was a surprise to me and the stinkypups. I’ve been through there this time of year before, without any problem. It might be that we would have made it through, if we didn’t have the additional downward momentum created by stopping on the tree branch. Or maybe my sled would have broken through, but not the dogs.

We passed Mike again on the way home (he had taken a different route). While the dogs do OK after getting wet, especially in the balmy 10 degrees Fahrenheit, when this all happened, I was soaked completely in both boots/socks, all of my right side to my waist, and most of my left side. Also both hands/arms.

The cool part is that once I was out of the cold water, I did not get cold for quite some time. My Apocalypse Design snow suit, heavy weight Apocalypse fleece pants, Patagonia expedition weight mountaineering socks, Baffin Design boots all did a great job.

Special thanks to my mittens, made by our neighbor Maureen. These are fleece outside and in, and either fleece or foam interior. These were totally soaked. I squeezed them out, and put them on. And they kept me warm, the whole way home! Amazing stuff…completely wet, and literally freezing solid on the outside, and my fingers were reasonably toasty for 45 minutes or so.

Back home, my pants and boots had started to freeze solid, and were quite heavy. My frozen mitts, coupled with the frozen clips and harnesses on the dogs, meant I needed to use my bare hands to unclip the dogs. (A technique for a frozen brass clip is to hold them in your bare hand for a few seconds, to thaw them.) Since it was 10 degrees above zero, this wasn’t as bad as it might seem….below-zero temps would have made this whole exercise much more perilous.

Ilana came out and finished up the dog care, and I squeegeed myself and my gear off, to get ready for another day.

For the record, my team was: Chester as loose leader, leaders were Chevy & Decker, Nicki & Roo, Storm & Rocket, Luke & Spike, Ahab & Higgs, with Simba and Rattles in wheel.

We’ve moved Sugar into the house because she got beat up by Nutok. She’s been doing pretty well, although I haven’t moved her from the blog “sled-dog” category to the “pet dog” category because I’m not sure if the move is permanent.

We’ve been bringing Frankie into the house more and more as “dog of the day.”  Frank is a really good lead dog, but he runs like a duck and just doesn’t have the build of a sled dog. He gets very cold in the winter, and my plan is for him to stay inside on cold winter nights. When we adopted him, he was an inside dog– but his owners gave him up because he was high energy and was destructive. He’s been very well behaved inside, although like Chester, we don’t leave him home alone. He’s quite comfy on the couch– but Neptune doesn’t like this since the couch really belongs to him (Nep.).

Since I’m probably going to participate in the 2009 Serum Run, I needed to get some more dogs. Of the 25 dogs that we have, only 4-7ish can run 750 miles (30-60 miles per day). These dogs are:

• Nicky (Can run in lead, but doesn’t know commands).
• Decker (A great lead dog, but doesn’t know how to poop and run so she holds it in and has bloody diarrhea at the end of the day. She’s not a good eater on the trail).
• Storm (Can run in lead, but is petrified of snow machines because she got hit by one.)
• Simba (A good team dog, but has extremely BAD feet. I need to take diligent care of his feet, otherwise they’ll crack and bleed.)
• Higgs (A possible candidate. He tends to overheat and get tired).
• Asa (Higgs’ brother– a possible candidate, but has had some wrist injuries).
• Roo (A possible candidate, but Roo tends to not eat at all on long trips. She also crabs a lot (runs to the side) in Manmat harnesses and does better in a traditional x-back. She can run in lead, but gets tired after 20 miles).

Sooo, we got some new dogs from a neighbor who was getting out of mushing. This puts us back up to 31 dogs (ack!!!) The new guys are:

• Dutchess (A 10 year old female that we’ll use for gee/haw training)
• Luke (A 3 year old male)
• Spike (A 3 year old spayed female)
• Rocket (A 5 year old male)
• Ahab (A 5 year old male)
• Chevy (A 4 year old male)

I’ll post pics and bios soon.

Bosco didn’t eat his breakfast this morning, and I didn’t allow him to go on walkies, although he would have if I left the gate open. Last night was the first night I didn’t hear him snoring while he was sleeping; I didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t snoring. Bosco’s snore helps me to sleep.

I hope he’s okay.

The sled dogs involved were Simba, Peetie, Duke, Red, Storm, Rattles, Monkey, and others. There were a couple of spin-off fights: Monkey and Roo, Red and Higgs– but everyone seems to be okay.

1. Lead: Frankie & Decker
2. Point: Red & Storm
3. Team: Monkey & Higgs
4. Swing: Simba & Rattles
5. Wheel: Nicky & Roo

Ending Team was:

1. Lead: Nicky & Decker
2. Point: Simba & Rattles
3. Team: Monkey & Higgs
4. Swing: Storm & Red
5. Wheel: Frankie & Roo

The trail conditions were soft packed snow, no overflow (although before the race we were told there was 50ft of wet overflow/water that was 1.5 feet deep– good thing Greg didn’t encounter this!).

I guess that’s his karma for putting a hole in his neighbor’s foot.